Ahoy! Another month, another post of changes. We know many of you are excited for the next alpha so we'll just get straight to it. We also want to let you know we are aiming to have alpha 4 the weekend of August 27th. We apologize for being late this month, but we hope it will be worth it! If possible we may attempt a pretest sometime early next week, but this pretest would not turn into a full alpha like the others.

Game changes

[General] All score/levels have been reset as we've changed the way stats are stored

[Balance] Broadside points for captains to 60 points down from 100[Balance] Melee damage of cutlass and rapier reduced[Balance] Swivel will now only penetrate two surfaces, the third will destroy the shot[Balance] Swivel collider size reduced by 50%[Balance] Can only use swivel and wheel while standing[Balance] Can only use the wheel if you're standing on the platform[Balance] Wheel is immune to swivel penetration[Balance] Ships move slightly faster when taking on water[Balance] Fire chance lowered from 5% to 2% per impact[Balance] Hand mortar has two shots[Balance] Can only use melee and hammer under water

[Polish] When grappled sails now automatically retract[Polish] Current server is now shown in the escape menu[Polish] Holes already being repaired will glow green and be unrepairable to you[Polish] Left alt will now toggle the mouse for voting [Polish] Buckets should be even more effective[Polish] Switching weapons should be less multi-arm

[Feature] Can color and name your ship as captain[Feature] Can now play as female[Feature] Fort mortars[Feature] Destructible forts[Feature] Can now switch weapons with scroll wheel​[Feature] Siege

[Graphics] No longer see inner faces of glowing holes (no honeycombing)[Graphics] Cannonball impact fx adjusted to be much more devastating[Graphics] Grass now reacts to ambient lighting[Graphics] Fixed an issue with parallax mapping

[Sound] Impact sound effects updated along with many other tweaks/replacements[Sound] Footstep sounds for land

Siege

Siege is a new game mode that will be introduced in alpha 4. We have been very excited to get this mode in and have been working very hard as the resources required to do it changed at the last minute.

So, what is siege?

Siege is a mode that will unfold in a set of stages that will pin the attackers and defenders in different situations. Keep in mind alpha 4 will be the first time this mode will be played and we are expecting extreme imbalances that will need to be worked out over the course of the test. While the player count isn't final, we'll be trying 64 for this mode so we can analyze how things hold up.

Stage 1Stage one will be an attacking team of two pirate galleons against a small navy fort defended by a single navy galleon. Ships for both factions will respawn in siege, but tickets are in place for the attackers. Again, expect changes to be made once we see siege in action during alpha 4. It will take us some time to get the balance of everything right.

The goal for stage 1 is for the attacking pirate team to capture the navy fort. The only way to get into the fort is by blowing down the walls with a broadside from the ship or by destroying a section with the hand mortar. The defending team can repair the fort. Forts also use heavy shot, which will create two holes when hitting a ship.

Stage 2Stage two will move the defending navy teams to a new bigger fort in the distance. Here they will begin manning the wall cannons and mortar towers to prepare for the incoming attacking pirate ships.

The goal for the pirates will be to destroy the mortar towers so they can safely park their ship and begin the invasion on the fort. Being hit by a mortar will be an instant 10 holes, so keep an eye in the sky and stay moving!

Note that mortars are still mostly placeholders and this is just a test location

Stage 3Stage three will have the attacking pirates working together to carry (or defend carriers of) explosive barrels to the gate of the larger fort.

​The fort gate will be destroyed once the amount required has been placed.

Stage 4Stage four will be a final push to the back of the fort to capture the final flag. The inside of the fort during alpha 4 is entirely subject to change once we see the flow of the combat.

Cannon supplies

As of alpha 4, both ships and forts will require their cannon ammo to be resupplied. A single cannon will be able to get multiple shots off before the nearby supply crate is empty. Note: we are open to suggestions on this system and also complete removal if it is not well received.

To resupply, players will need to run to the supply stash located in their fort or ship (Q) will show an icon of it's location. After grabbing a crate from the limited stash you will run it to the empty ammo crates on deck.

​This system works to not only allow more things to do on deck for score, but also to eventually reward teams for accuracy, as their opponent will run out of ammo. A similar system will be applied to hole repairing in the future, though it will be a little less tedious. These systems will all work together with limited tickets to create a smaller margin of error as captain and crew by being less forgiving of missed broadsides or bad positioning.

Character options

There is now an option to toggle your gender. When we first added this option we posted a picture and got a lot of feedback. We have revised the female head entirely (shown below the video) and will be revising the body. We will also be adding female hairs, as currently they use the male pushed back hairstyle. Because of time constraints and priorities these revisions will not be in alpha 4, but they will be in alpha 5.

We have also added new beards .

Note that we will have a selection of female heads

Ship customization

After being elected, captains will now be prompted with a menu to both name and color their ship. We plan to extend this further in the future.

Next month

Next month we hope to begin introducing voice work for captain and crew along with many other gameplay changes and polishes. We will be making further changes to siege, as we plan to make the composition random per round. Meaning it could be 4 attacking hoys vs 2 defending hoys, or 2 attacking hoys and 1 galleon against 1 defending galleon and so on.

Thanks for reading! Also, if you missed it we uploaded a video to celebrate 3 years of Blackwake!